Iceland cuts own-brand plastic packaging by 29 per cent.
Supermarket claims engaging with its suppliers and customers has been key to reducing plastic from own-brand products
Frozen food retailer Iceland has today announced it has cut its use of plastic by almost a third, two years on from its pledge to remove plastics from all own-label products by the end of 2023.
The retailer said it has moved 74 product lines in its frozen ready meal range from non-recyclable black plastic to paperboard-based trays, slashing annual plastic use by 3,794 tonnes. The changes have been made without passing any cost onto customers, the company added.
It is also working to reduce its use of difficult to recycle plastics, including PVC and polystyrene, it said.
Specifically, the company has set up working groups with almost 100 suppliers of its own-label lines, establishing policy frameworks for removing plastic packaging and advancing redevelopment plans for every product that stil requires plastic packaging.
It has also launched a series of trials to research further ways to meet its plastics reduction goal, including the UK's first plastic bag free store and a reduced plastic Christmas range. In addition, the company installed reverse vending machines in stores, which have so far collected over 1.2 million plastic bottles, rewarding customers with over £120,000 in 10p vouchers.
The announcement comes just a day after Green Alliance research arguing a far more holistic approach to single use plastic waste is needed to tackle the UK's polluting throwaway culture, pointing out that policy efforts to ban palstic microbeads, bags and straws in the UK have in some cases led to perverse, unintended consequences that have negatively impacted the environment.
Richard Walker, managing director at Iceland, said that removing plastic packaging completely was a huge challenge, due to a lack of alternatives in some cases and the fact the infrastructure of the manufacturing industry was largely built around plastic use.
"We received overwhelming support from the public when we announced our commitment back in January 2018, and I'm enormously proud of the progress we've made over the past two years," he said in a statement. "To have removed 29 per cent at this stage is a real milestone in our journey and we continue to innovate and develop, week by week and tonne by tonne.
"Whilst we have seen a promising shift away from plastic usage across the industry and a significant increase in consumer awareness of the issue since the beginning of 2018, we remain the only retailer to have made this pledge. We're now looking ahead to the next phase of our journey, whilst continuing to engage our customers by finding scalable and user friendly solutions, truly democratising choice to make sustainable packaging options an affordable reality for everyone."
*Title Photo : Iceland managing director Richard Walker | Credit: Iceland
10 March 2020
BusinessGreen
